Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to information handling systems. More specifically, embodiments of the invention provide a method and system for managing social commerce within a social media environment.
Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
These same information handling systems have played a key role in the rapid growth of electronic commerce on the Internet. One known aspect of electronic commerce is affiliate networks, which allow online merchants to reach a larger audience through participation in various affiliate programs. Typically, potential customers are referred to the merchant's website from an affiliate's web site, which receives a share of any resulting sale as compensation for the referral. Various affiliate network services and benefits generally include referral tracking, reporting tools, payment processing, and access to a large base of participants. Over time, affiliate networks have made progress in simplifying the process of registering affiliate participants fore or more merchant affiliate programs. However, affiliates still face integration challenges when attempting to provide their users a customized subset of the merchant's website.
In recent years, information handling systems have also been instrumental in the widespread adoption of social media into the mainstream of everyday life. Social media commonly refers to the use of web-based technologies for the creation and exchange of user-generated content for social interaction. As such, it currently accounts for approximately 22% of all time spent on the Internet. More recently, various aspects of social media have become an increasingly popular for enabling customer feedback, and by extension, have likewise evolved into a viable marketing channel for vendors. This new marketing channel, sometimes referred to as “social marketing,” has proven to not only have a higher customer retention rate than traditional marketing channels, but to also provide higher demand generation “lift.”
Currently, social marketing is typically limited to providing a link from a social media environment to the home page of a merchant's website, where a referred user can then search for a recommended product. In some cases, the user may be referred to a predetermined product page or listing. However, no known ability is currently available for a social marketer to refer a user to a customized subset of a merchant's products. Furthermore, social marketers generally lack real-time integration with the merchant's site. As a result, they typically have to rely upon the merchant's traditional methods of referral tracking, reporting, accounting and payment processing. Moreover, there is a lack of simplified integration between merchant websites, affiliate networks, and social media environments, which pose challenges in realizing the promise of social marketing.